


Resigning

by thethaumas



Series: Helping Hands [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry, Established Relationship, HP: EWE, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:32:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2376611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethaumas/pseuds/thethaumas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry returns from a stakeout with new priorities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resigning

Harry hadn’t been home all week, he had said he didn’t expect to be back until the end of the week—they were closing in on the group selling illegal dragon eggs that instead of hatching a dragon tended to violently explode in the victim’s face. The body count was rising and the aurors ordered a stakeout of one of the shops the eggs had originated from to try to get their hands on the leaders. Harry, of course, was on the case and unable to communicate with anyone outside of the auror department. When Draco met Hermione for lunch on Thursday, she had obviously been in contact with Ron and tried to ease Draco’s worry, but he could tell by the tight hold she had on her teacup that all was not well. It didn’t matter how he tried to pry, she didn’t know enough only that things had gone south, and what he’d taken as obvious communication was in fact the anxiety from the lack of it. When he heard from Luna later that night that the article the Quibbler was planning to run on the rise in dragon egg trade led to uncovering a connection with a group of violent neo-death eaters, Draco felt a cage of fear lock around him. 

It had been four nights since then, four nights without sleeping, four nights of starting at every creak of the house and rattling of the wind in the windows. Four nights, and Pavarti told Draco not to bother coming in to work until he got some damn sleep—telling him he was worse than working with an inferi. He knew it wasn’t fair to her to come in and try to work without any sleep, but he’d rather go in to the office than sit around at home waiting to hear what happened. That, and they were working on developing a new line of cheer-up potions for those still suffering from extended stress from the war, and they were so close to perfecting it for sales it was insulting to be sent home like a scolded child. 

Monday afternoon found Draco curled up in his favorite lounge chair reading one of those ‘classic’ muggle novels Hermione kept pushing on him, trying to keep his mind off the time. The book was only slightly distracting, it must have lulled him to sleep for the next Draco knew he was startled awake at the sound of the floo behind him coming to life, and the sitting room was completely dark otherwise. He sat up, the book falling from his lax grasp as he turned to peek around the chair in time to see Harry brushing soot off his robes as he stumbled on the rug in front of the hearth. Draco was up and across the room before he even thought about getting up. He quickly took stock of Harry, his hair was singed and his eyes were bruised and sunken from exhaustion, and he swayed on his feet into Draco’s hands as he brought them up to grip Harry’s shoulders. 

“Harry,” he said the name breathlessly, like a prayer. Draco’s right hand let loose Harry’s shoulder to burrow under Harry’s robes until he could rest it on the warmth of Harry’s chest, feeling the soothing thump-thump beneath. “Harry,” he said again, pressing his face into Harry’s throat and breathing him in. 

“I’m here,” Harry’s voice was rough like he’d been screaming, and his arms were slow as he wound them around Draco. “I’m fine,” his breath came out in a large puff as Draco burrowed closer, pressing a kiss to the pulse in Harry’s throat. “We got them.” 

Draco pulled back from Harry after a bit, satisfied the other man was warm and alive, but kept his hand on the warm skin over Harry’s heart. From up close he took in more than the exhausted pull to Harry’s features he’d noticed before—there was pain in his green eyes, and a barely healed cut running from his left eyebrow up into his hairline, bisecting his famous scar. It wasn’t just his face, Draco could feel Harry trembling slightly under his hands and let out a frustrated breath as he stared at Harry. “You’ve not been healed, have you?” 

Harry only closed his eyes and leaned further in to Draco, then said, “No, I wanted to be home.” 

“Come along then,” Draco extracted his hand from Harry’s robes and used the one still gripping Harry’s shoulder to pull him along and out of the sitting room. He marched them to the bedroom, where he pushed Harry down onto the made bed and gave him a long look before leaving him to get an assortment of potions from his personal store room. 

When he came back into the bedroom Harry had shucked off his robes, leaving them in a pile on the floor by the bed, and had curled up under the blankets in just his pants. “Harry,” Draco said softly, not sure if the other man had fallen asleep. Harry’s glasses were still on, but he often passed out wearing them, and would wake up with them bent and out of shape in the morning. Harry lifted his head and gave Draco a small smile while he set down the vials he brought in onto the table by the bed. “What happened?” Draco asked, perching on the side of the bed. When Harry turned toward him he let out a small gasp at the mottled bruises he saw littering Harry’s side and curling around his waist. 

“We were ambushed,” Harry started and looked at the vials on the table, “I think I’m just badly bruised.” He said with a gesture to one of the bright blue vials. Draco nodded and uncorked one of the stronger healing potions at the same time he wove his wand over Harry’s body running a diagnostic charm over him. He had a fractured rib, and his pelvic bone was badly bruised with a hairline fracture as well, Draco winced and wondered how the hell Harry had been walking without showing any pain. But then, it was Harry, and he tended to underestimate how badly he was hurt all the time. Draco pressed the blue potion into Harry’s hand for him to drink while he uncorked a milky white one that he dabbed onto his fingers before massaging into the bruises decorating Harry’s torso. Once Harry downed the healing potion Draco measured out a small dose of skele-gro and pressed the cup into Harry’s hand. 

Harry swallowed the potion with a grimace at the taste and flopped his head back onto his pillow with a violent exhale. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said after a long silence only marked by the small sounds of Draco’s fingers gently massaging the healing salve into Harry’s skin. Draco’s hands faltered a Harry’s words and he looked up at the other man’s face, but Harry was staring up at the ceiling with a concentrated furrow of his brow. 

“What do you mean?” Draco asked, his words a whisper in the dark room, and pulled his hands away from Harry without even thinking about it. 

Harry quickly halted Draco’s retreating hands with his own and tilted his head to catch his eye. “I’m tired of fighting,” he said with a small half smile. “I’ve been fighting the dark for so long, and it’s like what is it? A Hydra? No matter the head I cut off there’s another popping up to take its place.” He started trying to sit up, but Draco pushed him back down firmly, and scooted up the bed to make it easier for Harry to look at him. “I know our work is important, I know we’ve so far been able to cut down anyone trying to take Voldemort’s place—but I don’t want to spend my life fighting to keep things peaceful.”

“What do you want to do then?” Draco asked, going back to soothing Harry’s bruises. He was all for Harry not running into the thick of danger anymore, but he knew that a large part of Harry needed to be working toward good to be happy. Harry was quiet again, and Draco didn’t push, instead he watched with a satisfied air as the dark purple bruises faded back to the same golden brown as the rest of Harry’s skin. 

It was only after a small movement in his peripheral vision had him looking up at Harry’s face did Draco notice the way his green eyes were gazing at him softly. “Something like what you do, I think,” he said, capturing one of Draco’s hands again and giving the narrower fingers a light squeeze. “You help people without having to fight.” 

Draco sat shocked for a moment, yes, he was helping people in a distant sort of way. Much of his work was research and experimentation, the end goal of the potion of course benefit others, but he rarely saw those benefits first hand. He doubted Harry would be satisfied doing such removed work. “I—do you think you’d be happy?” 

“Yes,” Harry said, resolutely with a small nod. “Only, not what you do, of course,” and his smile turned a little self-deprecating as he continued, “I’ve never had the head for potions.” Draco opened his mouth to refute that, he knew Harry could do well under instruction from someone who didn’t hate him. Harry’s eyes sparked with amusement and he shook his head to stop Draco’s words saying, “No, really, it’s fine. I was talking to Neville the other day, about the kids who were orphaned from the war and I want to do something about that.” 

“Oh,” Draco’s thoughts jumbled together in a mess of orphanages, the frankly disturbingly small child services department of the ministry, and what ridiculous acronym Hermione could come up with for whatever Harry decided to do. “I think that’s lovely,” he said and squeezed the hand Harry still held. 

“It’s just—if there’d been better options for orphans maybe we wouldn’t have even had a Voldemort—“ he trailed off, and Draco could fill in the rest of his thought, that Harry would have never had to stay with the Dursleys. He squeezed Harry’s hand again and leaned over to press a kiss to the healing skin on Harry’s forehead. Harry let out a surprised happy noise and gave Draco a look of such pure adoration he thought his heart might burst. “Yes, well. I’ve not worked out how to start or anything, but that’s what I want to do.” He reached up and started pushing Draco’s robes off his shoulders. “I’m turning in my resignation tomorrow,” Harry said with a quiet voice.

Draco stepped out of his robes and let Harry pull him down onto the bed, piling the vials back onto the table as he went. “You’ll figure it out, we’ve too many friends who’ll be interested for you not to get tons of ideas anyway,” he said before his lungs squeezed and his face split in a wide yawn. Now that he was lying on the bed, his string of sleepless nights had caught up to him. He burrowed in close to Harry’s body, pressing a kiss right above Harry’s heart as he whispered, “Thank you.” 

Harry’s arms wound tightly around him, squeezing their bodies together as he buried his face in Draco’s hair, making his words muffled when he spoke, “No, thank you for being the best reason to stop running in to danger.” Draco only smiled in response, his lips stretching over where they still touched the skin of Harry’s chest.


End file.
